If you ask Christians to describe their quasi-chosen
god of worship, you’ll often hear such descriptors as “wonderful” and “loving.”
This choice of selective designation seems commonplace within the Christian
community. In fact, most churches ignore the Old Testament all together so that
the members feel comfortable propagating this view. Fueled by such blatant
omission, this lengthy chapter will fill the void by offering a look at the
volume of horrendous acts performed or directed by the darker side of God.
However, you shouldn’t interpret this chapter as an attempt at an exhaustive
record of every violent act attributable to God because such a review would
require another book all together.

Upon completion of reading this chapter,
you should realize that God was a mass murderer among other things, often
directing others to rape and kill for him. He also distributes sinister laws
and explains what punishments will ensue if someone deviates from his wishes.
What’s worse, the ultimate penalty for disobedience is Hell: eternal torture of
unfathomable proportions. Even if we ignore the previously discussed scientific
problems debunking the notion of an affiliation between divinity and the Bible,
you should still feel resistance against worshipping this particular Hebrew
deity after learning of the details emphasized over the next few selections.

God’s
Genocidal Wrath

Without any conceivable doubt, I firmly
believe that the Hebrew god is the most evil character of all time. Starting
with the book of Genesis, we learn that he’s an insanely angry deity. Of the
many atrocities committed in the Old Testament, God is usually the sole
participator. The Genesis authors record the first such instance in chapters
6-8 as the account of Noah’s flood.

The reason that God decides to drown the
entire world, killing nearly every living person and animal on earth, is his
belief that people are evil and unworthy of existence (Genesis 6:5). So what if they were evil? As Lenny Bruce
once exclaimed, “The fault lies with the manufacturer!” God allegedly created
humans, yet he faults us for being guided by our desires, instincts, and
natural tendencies. Since he’s supposedly omniscient, God realized how we were
destined to turn from the beginning. He must also have realized that his lament
would fuel the urge to destroy his precious creations, only to leave himself
back where he started. Even so, he creates Adam, yet hundreds of years later,
he drowns nearly all the men, women, and children on the face of the earth
because he deliberately chose not to make us to his liking the first time.

Even if we suppose the adults deserved to die slow and
torturous deaths, what association could we conceivably make between their
decisions and the adolescent victims of the flood? Couldn’t God have just
placed the innocent children and animals aside for a while so that they
wouldn’t drown? If not, how about a humane death at the very least? Drowning is
a horrible way for people to die. As a result of hopelessly treading water for hours, their muscles burned due
to large amounts of lactic acid production. Once they finally gave up, went
under, and held their breaths, acidic carbon dioxide eroded their lungs until
the unbearable pain forced them to inhale where there was no air for them to
breathe. The water brought into their lungs robbed their bodies of oxygen,
causing them to go numb. As water violently rushed in and out of their chests,
the currents eventually laid their heavily breathing, slowly dying bodies at
the bottom of the ocean. The inhaled water caused their lungs to tear and bleed
profusely. As their blood supply dwindled, their hearts slowly came to a halt.
Even so, their brains continued to process information for another couple of
minutes. They were patently aware that death was imminent, yet they could do
nothing to speed it or prevent it. I imagine that their final reflections would have
been on what they did to deserve such treatment.

As you see, drowning is not a quick and painless death.
Regardless, this is what God did to every man, woman, child, baby, and animal
on earth because he made a mistake!
To make matters disgustingly worse, the flood accomplished nothing! The omniscient God realizes after the flood that a man’s imagination is evil from youth
(Genesis 8:21). He
seemingly allows us to be evil to this day, just like those he purportedly
drowned in the flood. Even if this was the sole befuddled and immoral act
carried out by God, I’m positive that I couldn’t bring myself to worship him.
However, this is only the beginning of his mass-murdering spree.

Another genocidal operation courtesy of
God takes place in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Above
these cities, he creates a rain of burning sulfur to kill every inhabitant,
save Lot and his family, because they’re
deemed evil by the almighty judge, jury, and executioner (Genesis 19:24-25). Now, refer back to the
points illustrated in the previous paragraph. God should have assumed the
responsibility of taking measures to prevent these actions from somehow
becoming necessary. He even remembered that men were evil by nature after the
flood. Did he suddenly forget his opinion when he destroyed two entire cities
of men, women, and children? Again, we should sincerely hope that this
all-knowing deity would learn to take some of the blame in these situations.
Like drowning, burning is not a quick
and painless death. Fortunately, these people didn’t truly feel any pain
because the tale is an obvious work of fiction. If you travel to the locations
around which historians believe these cities are based, you’ll effortlessly
discover balls of sulfur forming naturally on the ground. In other words, as is
the case for Noah’s flood, we have the likely inspiration for the imaginative
tale.

Another Planned Genocide

In Exodus, we find God coercing Moses into
becoming his spokesperson for freeing the Israelite slaves from the Egyptian
Pharaoh. Moses initially points out that he’s a terrible speaker, but God’s
reply to this passive resistance is a set of rhetorical questions in which he
takes credit for making people deaf, dumb, and blind (Exodus 4:10-11). Some of
these handicapped people are a burden to others, and many die without ever
demonstrating independence. Nevertheless, God takes great pride in this
achievement. Most of us typically find people who relish in the misery of
others to be deeply disturbed. Instead of correcting these atrociously boastful
deeds, God seemingly leaves it up to us to develop ideas for combating
transcendentally induced handicaps. Ironically, with advances in medical
science, we’re making genuine progress against God’s wishes. His yearning to
make certain people handicapped is useless, evil nonsense. Evidently, it’s a
successful argument because Moses decides to accept the offer.

In the meeting among Moses, Aaron, and the
Pharaoh, God doesn’t want his Israelites to go free without a fight. Instead,
God instructs Moses and Aaron on exactly what steps to take so that the Pharaoh
will initially become too stubborn to allow the people to leave. Obviously, God
only wants an excuse to “bring forth [his] armies” against Egypt in order
to punish the entire country for the decisions of one man to hold his chosen
people as slaves (Exodus 7:1-14).

The plagues that God carried out against
Egypt as a result of the Pharaoh’s decision were turning the river to blood;
sending an abundance of frogs, lice, locusts, and flies; killing every cow
belonging to the people; inflicting boils upon all the citizens; creating a
hailstorm to destroy their crops; instituting three days of darkness; and
killing the firstborn male child in every household across the country. The
darkness, boils, frogs, lice, locusts, and flies were quite punishing, but they
wouldn’t necessarily ruin anyone’s life. The cattle slaughter, river of blood,
and downpour of hail ruined the Egyptians’ sole water and food sources. Worst
of all, God once again feels the necessity to eradicate thousands more innocent
babies, children, and animals because one man was too stubborn to free his
slaves.

On the escape route, Moses miraculously
parts the Red Sea and crosses safely. When
the Egyptian army pursues, the waters regroup to drown the soldiers and horses
(Exodus 7-14). The omnipotent Hebrew god could have easily freed the people and
spared thousands of lives, but, of course, he doesn’t do things this way. One
can only assume that he took sinister pleasure in murdering Egyptian soldiers
for following orders from their superior officers. Thankfully, modern
scholarship tells us that these events never took place either. I’ll explain
the logic behind this comforting declaration in Moses And Other Historical Fabrications.

God revisits the plague concept when he
dishes one out on his chosen people for following Aaron’s orders to worship a
golden calf (Exodus 32:35). Recall, however, that Aaron was one of the two men
to whom they owed their freedom. Why would God punish his people for actions
that they didn’t realize were “wrong,” especially when they had implicitly
learned to trust the person giving the orders? This debacle seems to have
shifted Aaron over to God’s bad side because God later kills his two sons for
building a “strange fire” (most likely meaning that they let a forbidden item
burn) (Leviticus 10:1-2). No matter how many times I read passages like this,
I’m always amazed how God kills people because they do something silly like
build a displeasing campfire, but as we will soon see, he allows them to rape
female prisoners of war.

On the subject of fire, God later sets
some of the desert wanderers ablaze for complaining about their difficulties
(Numbers 11:1). Keep in mind that they were now wandering around the desert for
decades doing absolutely nothing after having been slaves in Egypt for
centuries. When they complain about having no meat for nourishment, God
provides them with a circle of quail three feet high and a day’s journey wide
but immediately plagues and kills a handful of them for grumbling (Numbers
11:31-34). Later, the people become increasingly irritated over being homeless.
In fact, circumstances are so miserable that they actually want to return to
Egypt as slaves. Subsequently, Korah leads a group of 250 other upset
individuals to stand up to Moses. Needless to say, they all pay for their
mutiny. God opens the ground under Korah’s household and sucks everything he
has, family and all, into the depths of the earth (Numbers 16:31-33). The
remaining council of 250 are burned alive (Numbers 16:35). Does the punishment
fit the so-called crime? Does God have any compassion for their situation?
Obviously not, on both accounts.

When the Israelites were upset that Moses
caused those 250 people to die, God sends a plague to slay an additional 14,700
(Numbers 16:41-49). To close out the Pentateuch, God exterminates a number of
his people who fall down and worship the gods of Baalpeor. A subsequent plague
kills another 24,000 (Numbers 25:1-9). At least these people may have had some
idea that what they were doing would result in a punishment…

For The Sins Of Another

God’s episodes of murdering innocent
individuals for the faults of their leaders, fathers, or other ancestors are
not uncommon in the Old Testament. Jephthah asks for God’s assistance in
killing the children of Ammon and promises him the first person out of his
house upon his return as a burnt sacrifice if he will agree to aid with the
massacre. God concurs and lethally delivers the children of Ammon into
Jephthah’s hands. When Jephthah returns, his daughter, an only child, makes her
way outside to welcome him home. Two months later, Jephthah regretfully
fulfills his promise by burning his daughter as a sacrifice to God (Judges
11:29-39). Why would God allow a man to offer an innocent person as a reward
unless God also intended for certain people to be mere possessions?

While David is King, he decides to conduct
a census: a horrendous sin in God’s eyes. As punishment for his poor decision,
he is to select among seven years of famine, three months of fleeing from his
enemies, and three days of pestilence. Unable to choose from the offered
catastrophes, God picks the three days of pestilence that result in the deaths
of 70,000 men. Women and children weren’t mentioned, not that the Bible
considered them to have any real value in the first place. Again, God murders
enough people to fill a sizable city for the “sin” of one man. David
subsequently cries out to God and asks him why he wants to murder innocent
people who had nothing to do with the decision to execute a census. Of course
God doesn’t provide an impossible answer for this sensible question, but his
reasons scarcely seem morally or ethically justifiable (2 Samuel 24:10-17).

David also desires a woman named Bathsheba
even though she’s married to one of David’s soldiers. Driven by his lust, David
orders her husband to the front lines of a battle so that the enemy will take
care of his problem. God then becomes extremely angry with David for this
relatively petty crime. Once the new couple has a child, God afflicts it with
illness for a week before watching it die (2 Samuel 11, 12:14-18). Yet again,
God exterminates an innocent baby for the actions of the father.

At one point, God sends a famine upon
David’s followers. When he makes an inquiry to God for a justification, he’s
told, “It is for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites” (2
Samuel 21:1). Saul died years ago,
yet God just now decides to punish people who had nothing to do with the
decisions of their former leader.

David’s new son, Solomon, turns away from
the Hebrew god and decides to worship other deities. Solomon’s decision
infuriates God, but he isn’t punished because God recently came to like David.
Instead, he punishes Solomon’s son by taking away part of his land when he
comes to power (1 Kings 11:9-13). Once again, we see the impossibility of being
free from God’s anger even when living in total obedience to him. In essence,
Solomon’s son was divinely punished before he was ever born.

Next in the line of father-son reprimands
is the account of King Josiah. “And like unto him was there no King before him,
that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all
his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any
like him. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great
wrath…because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal” (2
Kings 23:24-26). The passage speaks for itself. Yet again, God punishes a
seemingly perfect person for someone else’s transgressions.

God’s Novel Method of Murder

Instead of directly murdering people or
using his followers to execute similar commands, the apparently insatiable God
begins sending animals to kill those who displease him. On one occasion, he has
a lion kill a man because he refuses to hit someone (1 Kings 20:35). God sends
his lions out again to kill a group of people who were new to Samaria. The
reason for this atrocity is their lack of worship, even though they were never
informed of the proper worship methods (2 Kings 17:24-26). However, this
supposedly insignificant detail didn’t halt God from killing them. He had to
have known that he would eventually murder this party, but instead of properly
instructing them, God just kills them. There’s not even a miniscule resemblance
of justice in the Hebrew god.

In an exploit of inconceivable
irrationality, God sends forth two bears to kill forty-two children for making fun of Elisha’s bald head (2 Kings 2:23-24).
Why would the omnibenevolent God feel the necessity to have two bears viciously
maul little children for acting like…children? This is supposed to be the same “wonderful”
and “loving” God who promises us eternal life, but an entity capable of these
inane activities could certainly change his mind and banish all of his
worshippers to Hell. Christians never have to justify such passages because, of
course, they never read them!

A Few More For Good Measure

God commits another reprehensible act when
Abraham and Sarah are journeying through Egypt. According to the story, Abraham
knows that if the Egyptians see him with his beautiful wife, they’ll have to
kill him so that she won’t have a defense when they rape her. To avoid such an
incident, Abraham devises a plan in which Sarah is to proclaim that they’re
only siblings. Thus, they can have their way with her while sparing Abraham’s
life. The Pharaoh eventually has a sexual encounter with Sarah, provoking God
to send plagues upon him as punishment for sleeping with another man’s wife
(Genesis 12:11-17). How, exactly, did God expect the Pharaoh to know she was a
married woman? Was he supposed to be omniscient as well? God would have never
punished the Pharaoh if Sarah wasn’t the possession of another man. Based on
the treatment of women we will see in Why
Women And The Bible Don’t Mix, God certainly wasn’t teaching the Pharaoh to
value the opposite sex; God unjustly punished him because of his ignorance.

Later in Genesis, we learn of a man named
Judah who has three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Seeing as how Er is “wicked in
the sight of the Lord,” God kills him. For what reason God found him too evil,
we could only speculate. Of course, there’s no reasonable guarantee that Er
would have incurred a death sentence from an impartial jury. Following the
slaying, God dictates Onan to impregnate and marry Er’s wife in order to
continue Er’s family line. Since Onan seemingly believes in freewill and
doesn’t feel that he should be required to do something he doesn’t want to do,
he spills his seed on the ground instead of finishing intercourse inside of
her. “And the thing he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also” (Genesis
38:7-10). Again, the omniscient God should have known that Onan would fail to
comply. Because God should have also realized that he would have to kill the
disobedient Onan, why did he order him around in the first place? Does he now
feel the need to have an excuse before murdering an innocent person? Was Onan
destined to exist only as God’s slave? Are we all God’s oppressed pawns,
created only to be shifted around for his amusement? Onan’s fate hardly seems
just by enlightened standards.

The Ark of the Covenant was a sacred item
that God demanded everyone to refrain from touching. The ancient Hebrews
commonly believed that God even played the part of a genie by residing in the
ark on occasion. Thus, when the Philistines steal this precious piece, God obviously
becomes enraged. As they’re carrying it through different cities, God inflicts
severe cases of hemorrhoids on all the inhabitants. Why God doesn’t just zap
these thieves and return the ark to the Israelites without harming additional
innocent bystanders is beyond me. Unbelievably, 50,070 people eventually die at
the hands of God because they simply look into the ark (1 Samuel 4-6). That’s
the equivalent of a moderately sized modern city dropping dead just for looking
at something God didn’t want them looking at. It’s difficult to imagine a
creature that can unleash punishments more evil than that, but God is
continuously setting new standards for himself.

Once we see the ark in transit again, the
cart and oxen transporting it move over a rough spot in the path and nearly
shake the prized object to the ground. Out of what we could only consider pure
reflex, Uzzah, who was accompanying the ark, places his hand on it to keep it
steady. Uzzah’s instinctive, split-second decision to prevent God’s home from
falling angers God enough to eradicate him from the earth (2 Samuel 6:6-7).

Since God commits scores of violent acts
randomly throughout the remainder of the Old Testament, let’s look at a few
examples. After delivering the Amorites into the hands of Joshua, he sends down
a hailstorm in order to kill a large portion of the people who flee from battle
(Joshua 10:8-11). God assists in the war between Barak and Sisera by
surrounding Sisera’s army and forcing them to dismount from their chariots.
Because of his intervention, Sisera’s entire army faces imminent death at the
hands of Barak (Judges 4:14-15). God causes the Midianites to kill one another
(Judges 7:22-23). He confuses the Philistines and causes them to kill one
another (1 Samuel 14:20-23). He inflicts a number of people with blindness
because Elisha asks him to do so (2 Kings 6:18). He causes a seven-year famine
without specifying a reason (2 Kings 8:1). God kills Jeroboam because he’s the
leader of the enemies (2 Chronicles 13:20). He kills Nabal without specifying a
reason, but it’s probably because David desires his wife and other belongings
(1 Samuel 25:38). God sends an angel to kill 185,000 men in an Assyrian camp
because they’re enemies of his people (2 Kings 19:31-35). He plagues Azariah, a
man labeled as a good King, with leprosy for the remainder of his life because
he allows people to burn incense in a location displeasing to God (2 Kings
15:1-5). This is another great example of an overbearing punishment for
breaking an asinine law. Some of our fellow humans were obviously destined to
meet death early in life without any chance of redemption in God’s eyes.

Counting just the flood, Sodom and
Gomorrah, the Red Sea incident, the ark gazers, the plagues, the census, and
the battles in which God directly participated, I estimate that this terrible
creature claims to have murdered one to two million
people. Regrettably, we still haven’t discussed any of the instances in which
God orders his people to kill others or when he “delivers armies” into the
hands of the Israelites to be annihilated in battle. By this point in our
discussion, God has already joined the elite company of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin,
and Zedong as the largest mass murderers in history.

Following
God’s Alleged Commands

When God wished certain people dead
thousands of years ago, he was never confined to his own omnipotent powers. You
might even agree that God was at his worst when he recruited others to assist
with the scores of slaughters in the Old Testament. As initially difficult as
it might be to accept, God often provided his followers with orders leading to
outcomes even more horrific than before. This section will discuss the specific
commands given by God and the consistently tragic results that follow. Try to keep
everything in perspective. These aren’t numbers; they’re human beings.

Recall the setting of God dishing out a
plague over the golden calf worship. Immediately prior to the plague inflicted
upon his people, God had ordered Moses and his loyal followers to “slay every
man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.”
Three thousand men died at the hands of their peers in addition to those killed
by the second punishment (Exodus 32:26-28).

Later on, a group of followers from Moses’
camp observes a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath. Since such a despicable
act was illegal in those days, they escort him back to Moses and inquire how
they should handle the incident. Moses answers them by declaring that God is
proclaiming, “the man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall
stone him with stones.” Following what they gullibly assume are God’s commands,
Moses’ cult members take him outside the camp and stone him to death for
picking up sticks on a day that he wasn’t permitted to do any work (Numbers
15:32-36). As you will soon realize, God encourages the Israelites to beat
their slaves and rape women captured in warfare; picking up sticks on the
Sabbath, however, will anger him enough to warrant a death sentence. Astounding!

God advises Moses on a number of matters
related to his appointed leadership. He is to cast any menstruating or leprous
person out of the camp because God doesn’t want to be around those “dirty”
people when he descends for a visit (Numbers 5:1-3). In other words, God wants
no association with those who are more likely to need assistance, medical or
otherwise. God also orders Moses to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan before
destroying their possessions (Numbers 33:50-52). However, he should offer the
people of distant cities a chance to become his slaves before killing them. If
they refuse, the Israelites have the duty to kill the men and take the
remaining people as plunder for themselves. In the cities that God delivers as
inheritances, Moses should “save alive nothing that breatheth” because the
helpless victims were taught to worship other gods (Deuteronomy 20:13-18).

In two subsequent pillages, God delivers
Sihon, King of Heshbon, into the hands of Moses at the battle of Jahaz. The
Israelites murder him; conquer all of his cities; and murder every man, woman,
and child residing within those cities per God’s instructions (Deuteronomy
2:32-35). Likewise, God delivers Og, King of Bashan, into the hands of Moses at
the battle of Edrei. The Israelites faithfully obey their orders by murdering
all the inhabitants so that they could acquire the land (Deuteronomy 3:1-4).
This noble god orders Moses to kill anything that moves, and as the incredible
list of wars in the Old Testament takes place, God’s followers would continue
to do exactly as their unimaginably harsh leader commands them.

When Joshua informs the Israelites of
God’s decision to deliver the city of Jericho over to them, they topple its
walls and kill every living thing in the city, except for a single harlot on
espionage missions, before burning it to the ground (Joshua 6:16-24).
Afterwards, God orders Joshua to infiltrate the city of Ai because he’s
delivered it in likewise fashion. The Israelites also set Ai on fire and kill
the 12,000 inhabitants running for their lives. The King of Ai is taken
prisoner and later hanged (Joshua 8:19-29). Following the victories at Jericho
and Ai, God commands Joshua to go on an unbelievable killing spree. The
Israelites subsequently murder all the men, women, and children in Makkedah,
Libnah, Lachish (along with the King of Gezer and his armies assisting
Lachish), Eglon, Hebron, and Debir. Not a single life was spared during these
invasions (Joshua 10:28-40).

When word spreads of Joshua’s rapid
conquests, a considerable number of cities combine their armies to attempt a
victory over Joshua and Israel. The number of resistance forces is “as the sand
that is upon the sea shore in multitude,” but God promises to deliver them all
to Joshua. Indeed, God remains true to his word and “They smote them, until
they left them none remaining.” Joshua then burns their chariots and brutally
cuts the hamstrings on their remaining horses (Joshua 11:1-9). After the
battle, the Israelite army marches into all the unprotected and defenseless
cities that had offered their armies in resistance and kills every living man.
In Hazor, the army kills every man, woman, and child before setting the city
ablaze. One can only speculate on how many hundreds of thousands of lives God
orders Joshua to take in these assuredly disputable accounts.

Following Joshua’s death, God proceeds
with his war strategies when the Israelites face Benjamin’s army. As a result
of God’s unorthodox command, 22,000 of his own people die in the first battle.
The next day, he orders them to face Benjamin once again. This time, they
suffer an additional 18,000 casualties. Phinehas, feeling a bit hesitant to
lead another hopeless skirmish, asks God if he should take command in another
attack against Benjamin. God affirms Phinehas’ inquiry and promises him a solid
victory. In the ensuing battle, the Benjamites suffer 25,100 casualties (Judges
20). In this short series of campaigns, God orders his own troops into two
battles that his omniscience tells him they won’t win. On the first two days of
this monstrous war, during which he wasn’t about to lift a finger to help, he
saw to it that 40,000 of his own people would become casualties of needless
warfare. Incidentally, the death of a single person initiated these hostilities.

Centuries later, when God “remembers” what
the Amalekites did hundreds of years prior to Saul’s leadership, he orders Saul
to journey to Amalek where he is to decimate every living thing in the city.
Saul only partially obeys by killing every person but saving a few of the best
animals for himself. My guess is that he was unaware of how enraged God becomes
over such trivial matters. God subsequently revoked Saul’s crown because of his
unwillingness to follow exact orders (1 Samuel 15). To me, however, the issue
of Saul’s crown isn’t the one of major importance. Personally, I feel that the
omnibenevolent God should not have held the people of Amalek responsible for
the enterprises of their distant ancestors, but God and I are obviously in
constant disagreement.

In a series of miscellaneous ethnic
cleansings, God delivers Jerusalem to Judah and the Israelites. They kill
10,000 Canaanites and Perizzites in Bezek (Judges 1:2-8). Later, God
accompanies Judah when he destroys the cities and kills the inhabitants of
Zephath, Gaza, Askelon, Ekron, and Luz (Judges 1:17-26). When Ehud announces
that God has delivered the Moabites into the hands of his chosen people, they
march to Moab and slay 10,000 men (Judges 3:26-29). God delivers Sihon and the
Amorites to be murdered by Jephthah and the Israelites (Judges 11:21-23). God
delivers twenty men to be slaughtered by Jonathan (1 Samuel 12:14). As God
orders David to exterminate a few Philistines delivered into his hands, David
does so and takes their cattle as well (1 Samuel 23:2-5). As God orders David
to kill more Philistines recently
delivered into his hands, David accepts God’s gift once again and kills more
Philistines in two additional battles (2 Samuel 5:19-25). God delivers the
Syrians to the people of Israel in order for them to murder 100,000 foreigners.
Twenty-seven thousand Syrians escaped but were killed when a wall fell on them
(1 Kings 20:28-30)! Likewise, God delivers the Moabites into the hands of
Israel once again. The army of Israelites destroys the city of Moab along with
an unknown number of its inhabitants. These instigations force the King to kill
his own son as an offering in order for the hostilities to cease (2 Kings
18:27)

When God witnesses certain members of
Israel turning from him, he decides to assist the tribe of Judah. God then
kills the King of Israel and enables Judah to kill 500,000 Israelite men
because the Judeans “relied upon the Lord God of their fathers.” Abijah, their
leader, takes the cities of Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephrain (2 Chronicles
13:15-20). The supreme being forces Abijah’s son, Asa, to face Zerah and his
staggering army of one million Ethiopians. Asa asks for God’s help, which is
willingly provided. In the battle, God strikes down great numbers of the
Ethiopians, perhaps killing some himself, and forces the rest to make a full
retreat. Asa then chases them back into their homeland and plummets all their
cities (2 Chronicles 14:8-15).

God later becomes angry with his followers
when they ridicule his messengers. As punishment, he sends the army of Chaldees
to kill all the occupants of Jerusalem. Control of the region now falls to
Persia (2 Chronicles 36:15-23). Why does God force his worshippers to suffer
through all this needless trouble when he’s just going to hand the land over to
someone else?

As you may have already guessed, God
didn’t confine the impact of his seemingly perpetual rage solely on humans.
Animal sacrifices seemed particularly important to this fiendish character.
Strangely enough, this is one deity out of many that seems pleased with aromas
emitted by burnt flesh (Genesis 8:20-21). In fact, Leviticus chapters 1-9 are
thorough instructions on how to perform animal sacrifices. The graphic details
contained therein are potentially nauseating and not for the weak of stomach.

For every category of sin, God has a
specific ritual that he wishes us to perform. His authors tell the readers how
to break animal necks, what parts of the animal to burn, what organs to
extract, where to sprinkle the blood, how much God thoroughly enjoys the
spectacle, etc. If you’re genuinely interested in how gruesome the Bible can
be, I would encourage you to read the first nine chapters of Leviticus. There
are several additional passages throughout the Bible providing complete and ridiculous
instructions for these crucially important animal sacrifices, but this lengthy
manual definitely serves as the most memorable example. Numbers 18:19 further
declares that animal sacrifices should be performed forever. Have Christians
finally appreciated the insanity of God, or do they just not read their Bibles
anymore?

An estimate on the number of victims who
paid the ultimate price in wars that are claimed to be instigated by God is
hard to determine, but I would imagine it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of
two or three million. All together, God may have been personally responsible
for as many as five million needless
murders. I’m sure there are several battles and/or plagues that I omitted, but
I trust you get the general message of this section. The Hebrew god is a mass
murderer, plain and simple. Moreover, these estimates still don’t include all the deaths resulting from petty religious
bickering that continues to this day. On the brighter side of things, however,
there’s no reason to mourn for the previously mentioned victims of God’s
brutality because the vivid human imagination was certainly the source from
which the authors derived all these accounts. Thus, these slaughters were
extremely unlikely to have taken place as recorded in the Bible. Again, we will
see overwhelmingly persuasive evidence to defend this position in Moses And Other Historical Fabrications.

God’s
Rules And Regulations

In addition to all the previously mentioned
atrocities, God hands down a nightmarishly inhumane code for his creations to
live by. In fact, there would literally be millions of murders committed every
day if God still had his way. I’ll certainly admit that a few of the more sane
guidelines are acceptable, but many are definitely not within the bounds of
justice and humanity. Those are the ones in need of a serious impartial review.
A few examples allegedly handed down by God follow.

Anyone who goes uncircumcised is to
be exiled from his people (Genesis 17:14).

If a man has sex with a menstruating
women, both are to be exiled (Leviticus 20:18).

A man who marries a mother and
daughter must burn in a fire (Leviticus 20:14).

If two men have sexual relations,
both must be put to death (Leviticus 20:13).

If a mother and son have sexual
relations, both must be put to death (Leviticus 20:11).

If a man and daughter-in-law have
sex, both must be put to death (Leviticus 20:12).

If a man has sex with an animal, both
must be put to death (Leviticus 20:15).

If a woman has sex with an animal,
both must be put to death (Leviticus 20:16).

Anyone who attacks his mother or
father must be put to death (Exodus 21:15).

Anyone who curses his mother or
father must be put to death (Leviticus 20:9).

Anyone who commits murder must be put
to death (Leviticus 24:17).

Anyone who commits adultery must be
put to death (Deuteronomy 22:22).

Anyone who commits perjury must be
put to death (Deuteronomy 19:18-19).

Anyone who commits kidnapping must be
put to death (Exodus 21:16).

Anyone who disobeys a judge or priest
must be put to death (Deuteronomy 17:12).

Anyone who works on the Sabbath must
be put to death (Exodus 35:2).

Anyone who does not worship God must
be put to death (2 Chronicles 15:13).

Any strangers approaching a sanctuary
must be put to death (Numbers 17:7).

Any prophet who tries to turn you
against God must be put to death (Deuteronomy 13:5).

Any prophet who makes a wrong
prediction must be put to death (Deuteronomy 18:20-22).

Family members who tempt you with
other gods must be put to death (Deuteronomy 13:1-5).

If an ox gores someone, the ox and
its owner must be stoned to death (Exodus 21:29).

Anyone who claims to talk with
spirits must be stoned to death (Leviticus 20:27).

A stubborn and rebellious son must be
stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).

Any woman who has had premarital sex
must be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:21).

Anyone who worships another god must
be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 17:2-7).

Anyone who curses or blasphemes must
be stoned to death (Leviticus 24:14-16).

If a city worships other gods, kill
everyone in it and burn it (Deuteronomy 13:12-16).

Let’s begin by considering the
adultery law. While cheating on a spouse is certainly one of the most
selfish acts a person can commit, being unfaithful is nothing deserving of
death. Some couples even encourage each other to commit adultery. If that’s
what they want, their sex lives should remain their own business. Suggesting
that this would upset a supernatural entity, one wise enough to create the
universe in a week, only demonstrates the unenlightened beliefs held by that
party. Since researchers have estimated that 50% of Americans commit adultery,
does this mean that God really want
us to stone 50% of America’s population to death? Likewise, about 25% of men
are uncircumcised. For what possible reason would God ever care what a man’s
penis looks like? Since there’s no conclusively proven health benefit from the
procedure, one can only assume that God finds it aesthetically pleasing.

As for killing men who lay with other men,
I really couldn’t spend enough time explaining the absurdity in such a rule.
The majority of society looks down on this practice because the Bible forbids
it, yet these same disapprovers break a number of similar rules detailed in the
upcoming chapter, Absurdity At Its Finest.
The love experienced between two same-sex individuals is genuine; the desire
for the practice most likely originates at the genetic level; and, as was the
case for heterosexual couples, a gay couple’s sex life should remain their own
business.

All sons are rebellious at some point, but
common decency tells us that this isn’t a sufficient reason to stone a child to
death because such circumstances are perfectly normal during the maturation
process. If the situation warrants a stern response, children should be
disciplined and/or corrected on a case-by-case basis, not barbarically
executed.

We
shouldn’t needlessly kill animals because some wacko has sex with them. The
helpless creatures obviously lack the capacity to make an informed choice in
the matter. Many employees work on the Sabbath every week, a realistic
necessity for a variety of professionals who preserve life and maintain order.
Killing your family because they worship a different god isn’t a justifiable
reason for homicide; that’s why it’s illegal!

The last time I checked, 67% of the world
doesn’t believe that the Bible is the word of God, and about 45% of the world
doesn’t even have the Old Testament in their preferred religion. Consequently,
how many billions of people does God want us to kill now? If we are to murder
someone who believes in a different god or a different interpretation of God,
the Jews are to kill Muslims and Christians, the Muslims are to kill Christians
and Jews, and the Christians are to kill Jews and Muslims. In essence, we can’t
necessarily fault Islamic extremists for their radical actions because they’re
obviously following what they’ve been thoroughly conditioned to believe are
paramount, unquestionable orders. Of course, priority would dictate that all
these killings should take place after those three religious sects take care of
Buddhists, Hindus, and members of the minor world religions. Now that God has
had his way, no one’s left alive to worship him. This deity was clearly an
insanely reckless invention with a poorly conceived design.

These rules do not include any of the
horrendously unconscionable restrictions placed on women in Why Women And The Bible Don’t Mix or
God’s slavery guidelines discussed in God’s
Stance On Slavery. There’s such an extraordinary amount of unimaginable
injustices against these two specific groups that I felt it was necessary to
provide separate chapters in order to give their respective oppressions
justice.

As you can tell from the list provided,
God wants you dead for just about anything you do. While the “courts” carried
out some of the sentences due to undoubtful acts of immorality, the punishments
are extremely harsh and rarely reflect the severity of the infraction
committed. Killing someone for murder and killing someone because his ox gores
a bystander are two entirely different instances to consider. Of all the
worthwhile messages that God could have included in the Bible to help us
through life, he settles on a number of nonsense rules and regulations that he
knew hardly anyone would still follow a short while later. Are these the likely
decisions of an omniscient creator, or are they the likely product of a group
of superstitious individuals playing on the gullibility of superstitious
audiences?

God’s
Psyche

While it may seem that the preceding
sections were a sufficient analysis of the oft-ignored alter ego of God, we
still have quite a bit more ground to cover in order to comprehensively
investigate this cauldron of evil. The focus will now shift from God’s
allegedly observable physical manifestations to the declarations and
interpretations of “divinely inspired” poets and prophets contemporaneous with
the Old Testament’s creation. We’ll try to tackle such issues as the human
personality of God, his childish necessity to make threats, and the dark future
according to this being.

We can answer many questions concerning
the nature of humans by studying the things we say and do, and there’s no
reason that we can’t apply this same principle to God if we give him the
benefit of behaving in a remotely logical fashion. Moreover, this is especially
true if he is, indeed, merely the product of human creation. Let’s reflect on
the Old Testament once again to review some of God’s alleged statements and
opinions in order to see what they might reveal about his personality. Of
course, you should realize how facetious it is to say that we can learn about
God rather than the authors molding him into their individual interpretations.

“He is a jealous God; he will not forgive
your transgressions nor your sins” (Joshua 24:19). Consider this observation:
God becomes jealous when we do not pay him enough attention or when we like
other gods better than him. If you are guilty of either of these
transgressions, he won’t forgive you for making him angry. If we transpose God
into a more human setting, we realize that his behavior is the quintessence of
a spoiled child throwing a tantrum when you won’t look to see what he’s doing.
This fair assessment is undeniably consistent with the remainder of God’s
curiously immature actions throughout the Old Testament. Even so, the Bible
does an about-face in the New Testament and says that the now silent creator does forgive you for anger-inducing
infractions. This notion exemplifies qualities of a more respectable and
desirable deity, thus the New Testament creator is the one on which Christians
tend to place their focus. Well, which interpretation of God should we accept
as the truth? You’ll no doubt see similar discrepancies reemerge in the
upcoming This Way And That: Biblical
Contradictions.

God places “the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children…unto the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7). As you
read the Old Testament, you should take careful notice of the aforementioned
recurring theme of God forcing children to pay for the sins of their ancestors.
I’ve probably worn the topic out by now, but this cannot possibly be considered a fair way of treating people. God
undeniably admits that he creates an unfair system in which the righteous are
not guaranteed freedom from his wrath due to the contingency of him punishing
us for our ancestors’ actions. Thus, we can only conclude that God receives a
sense of sadistic enjoyment from punishing people for things they didn’t do
because there’s no true justification for anyone, deity or not, to treat others
this way. Proverbs 16:4 even confirms this hypothesis by telling us that God
made evil people so that he could punish them at some point in the future. It’s
an incomprehensibly evil undertaking for God to make people behave a certain
way just so he can entertain himself by torturing them for eternity.
Furthermore, the excessive boasting and power flaunting by God literally adds insult to injury. In
addition, the author of the second letter to the Thessalonians says God will
cause wicked people to disbelieve the truth about Jesus so that he can send
them to Hell (2:8-12).

We also understand that God wants
Christians to suffer through life (1 Peter 4:12-19). Why doesn’t he make it
less painful to follow him in order for more of us to understand the “true” way
of being saved? If that’s not bad enough, God even hurts the people he loves
(Hebrews 12:6). Now we have even more
evidence that God doesn’t want to save some people from his punishment of
eternal, perpetual damnation. However, let us not forget that this is the same
deity who created his son to die an agonizing death on the cross in order to
pay for everyone else’s sins. If God were human, psychiatrists would certainly
have him locked in an asylum.

God goes so far as to place equivalent
monetary values on human life for an offering that he requires everyone to
provide (Leviticus 27:1-8). This is another prime example of the total
disregard God reserves for his creations. We may not be omnipotent and
omniscient, but most of us would never attempt to place a specific price on the
value of a human life. Incidentally, we’re worth very little to him. This
notion is especially true when you consider how readily he commands thousands
of us to our deaths in the Old Testament. If you’re interested, men are worth
approximately $100 US while women are only worth about $60 US in modern
currency equivalents. If you want to know why women are less valuable than men,
you’ll find out in the next equally disturbing chapter.

Job is an odd book in an odd place. While
it’s believed to have been written in an era concurrent with the Pentateuch
authorship, the fable appears much later in the Bible with the books of poetry.
Regardless, Christians insist that we accept it as a literal work rather than a
figurative one, thus we will review it as such. As a literal work, it’s a
wonderful glimpse into the mind of the most primitive form of the Hebrew god.
In the ridiculous tale, God allows Satan to torment the innocent Job by
utilizing various methods of torture. All of this is just to prove to Satan
that he couldn’t make Job curse the name of God. How nonsensical is that? God’s
ego drives him to watch a good man be
tortured because he feels the need to prove a point to an inferior entity of
evil.

The authors of Psalms often glorify God
for a number of despicable acts. The authors exalt God for giving knowledge on
how to kill enemies in battle (18:34-42) and for literally bashing people who
don’t worship him (2:9). The authors admire God for his plans to burn some of
his creations to death (21:9-10) and for the murder of every firstborn male
child in Egypt (135:8, 136:10). The authors praise God for his intentions to
tear disbelievers into pieces (50:22) and for making a spectacle out of people
who worship other gods (52:5-7). Why would anyone sing praises of such
abominations except to score points out of obvious fear? This thought reminds
me of the Iraqi government officials who started praising Saddam Hussein in
July of 1979 as he read a list of traitors who were to be executed. Because
members of the audience obviously didn’t want to be among those facing an
imminent death sentence, they publicly demonstrate their loyalty to Saddam by
shouting praises in order to preserve their own lives. The method works
wonderfully now, and it seemingly worked many centuries ago.

Guidelines on how to secure a place in
Heaven are finally set in the New Testament, but they remain inherently unfair
and contradicting. Christians across the board believe that you’ll burn in Hell
forever if you don’t accept Jesus as your personal savior (Mark 9:42-48). If we
assume this belief to be factual, is it truly fair to a radical Muslim who has
had the exact opposite notion drilled into his head since birth? Of course not.
All God has to do for the Muslim is show him the error of his ways. Instead,
the combination of God’s present silence and his Old Testament approval of
violence lamentably provides the radical Muslim with the notion that it pleases
God when people fly airplanes into buildings. The murdering Muslim simply
hasn’t been instructed otherwise.

Just Empty
Threats?

God invariably makes threats that if you
do this, he will counter with that. Let’s look at a few Old Testament
examples and determine if his retaliations are justifiable. The first of which
would be to not harass any widows or orphans because God will kill you with a
sword (Exodus 22:24). As in the previous section, we see a continuity of God
administering unfit punishments for minor crimes. If you try to rebuild
Jericho, your oldest and youngest son will die (Joshua 6:26). While such an
extreme measure of revenge could hardly be warranted, God affords everyone
ample opportunity to avoid his insane wrath in this instance. If you don’t
worship God, he’ll sever your arm, revoke your eyesight, and curse you with a
premature death (1 Samuel 2:31-33). Similarly, he’ll wipe you off the earth if
you observe other gods (Deuteronomy 6:14-15). If you take it as far as hating
God, he’ll totally destroy you (Deuteronomy 7:10). I think these punishments
are starting to creep over that arbitrary boundary known as “fairness.”

However, we see a small incongruity in
making these threats. If God’s orders were to kill anyone who disobeys these
divine commands, why would he personally need to administer these punishments?
Better yet, why isn’t God making good on these threats? Incidentally, shouldn’t
God be angry with his followers for not killing people with different
viewpoints? Regardless of the answers to these questions, we’re about to see
God leap past any hope of inconspicuously remaining in the background.

If ye will not hearken unto me, and
will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if
your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but
that ye break my covenant: I will even appoint over you terror, consumption,
and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart:
and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will
set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that
hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if
ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven
times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will
make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be
spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the
trees of the land yield their fruits. And if ye will contrary unto me, and will
not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according
to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of
your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your
high ways shall be desolate. And if ye will not be reformed by me by these
things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto
you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins. And I will bring a
sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are
gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and
ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. And when I have broken the
staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they
shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be
satisfied. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary
unto me; Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will
chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your
sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your
high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases
of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste
and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of
your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies
which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the
heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate,
and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it
lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest,
and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it
did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And upon them that are
left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of
their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall
flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they
shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and
ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among
the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are
left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands and also
in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. (Leviticus
26:14-39, reworded in Deuteronomy 28:15-68).

That’s quite a punishment for not
believing in God. You’ll go blind; you’ll become sorrowful; you won’t be able
to grow food; your enemies will become your leaders; you’ll run for no reason;
you’ll have no pride, power, or strength; your land will go bad; your children
and cattle will be killed by wild animals; your cities will empty; you’ll be
struck by a sword; you’ll receive a pestilence; your hunger won’t be satisfied;
you’ll eat your children; your places
of worship will be destroyed; your enemies will take your land; you’ll become
terrified; you’ll live with injustice; and then you’ll perish.

Thankfully, we can safely conclude that
there’s no connection between reality and these transcendental threats because
it’s obvious that God isn’t currently enforcing these punishments. Since
unfortunate episodes perpetually manifest across the religious spectrum, it’s
also safe to conclude that they aren’t transpiring due to the absence of God in
the victims’ lives. Since the Hebrews contemporaneous with these threats lived
in an unscientific and superstitious era, they gullibly but wholeheartedly
believed that these events had a divine cause and effect relationship. As an
obvious consequence of that unenlightened belief, the population rarely
challenged these frightening warnings. What can we surmise about these
intimidating statements? Two words: scare tactics.

In the quoted passage, God yet again
exposes his childish behavior by listing a long series of punishments for
failing to follow his commandments and not paying him enough attention. He
sends his only son to assist us in carrying out what he feels is a positive
lifestyle, yet he threatens to torture us for eternity if we don’t listen to
him and follow his advice. Why is God overly concerned with how we act and how
we choose to worship? Since this cruel deity supposedly made us exactly how he
anticipated, he should definitely know what actions we’re imminently going to
take. One would presumably think that an all-powerful and all-knowing god would
have little regard for the opinions of his insignificant creations, turning
instead to hobbies that one would think are more productive. It’s now obvious
that our existence is nothing but a game to him, and it should leave the reader
to wonder why he would subject us to this exhibition when he already knows the
outcome.

The God Of
The Future

It would
be quite negligent for me to approach a somewhat comprehensive piece on this perspective
of God but not include references for the hundreds of evil operations that the
prophets claim he will implement sometime in the future. There’s such a wealth
of despicable activities carried out or silently observed by God that I must
once again force myself to share only a small portion of the most horrendous,
inventive, or entertaining ones. Common examples of Godly justifications
usually fall into one of the following categories: he has angry desires for
revenge, people will turn their backs on him, or his followers will sin by
finding new gods to worship. While most of the foretold events are yet to come,
apologists must accept the prophecies as part of an unchangeable future because
the passages are part of the inerrant, unalterable word of God. Since these
promised catastrophes are imminent in their arrival, we can treat these events
as though they’ve already materialized for the purpose of analyzing the moral
justifications, or lack thereof, that God offers for his actions.

God will kill men, have their
children smashed, and have their wives raped (Isaiah 13:15-16).

God will punish children for the
iniquities of their fathers and distant ancestors (Isaiah 14:21).

God will lay waste to entire cities
and make the lands desolate (Jeremiah 4:7).

God will set people, animals, and
even plants on fire because of his anger (Jeremiah 7:20).

God will send so much evil that
people would rather be dead than suffer (Jeremiah 8:3).

God will give away the property of
men, including their wives, to other men (Jeremiah 8:10).

God will kill young men, and their
children will die from a famine (Jeremiah 11:22).

God will cause everyone to become
drunk so father and son will kill one another (Jeremiah 13:14).

God will not hear the cries of the
people or acknowledge their sacrifices (Jeremiah 14:12).

God will make people hungry enough to
eat their own children and friends (Jeremiah 19:9).

God will burn entire cities with the
inhabitants still inside (Jeremiah 50:32).

God will break people’s bones and
knock their teeth out with stones (Lamentations 3:1-16).

God will force fathers and sons to
eat each other and scatter their remembrance (Ezekiel 5:10).

God will be comforted by killing
everyone with pestilence, plagues, and swords (Ezekiel 5:12-13).

God will lay dead bodies around idols
and spread their bones around the alters (Ezekiel 6:5).

God will kill righteous men and
forget their good deeds if they ever turn to sin (Ezekiel 18:24).

God will turn daughters into whores
and wives into adulterers (Hosea 4:13).

God will kill children when they come
out of their mothers’ wombs (Hosea 10:14).

God will tear people apart and devour
them like a lion (Hosea 13:8).

God will kill children and unborn
fetuses because their parents worship other gods (Hosea 13:16).

God will sell the children of Israel
into slavery in a far away land (Joel 3:8).

God will kill inhabitants of entire
cities if they have a corrupt government (Micah 3:9-12).

God will consume every living thing
from the face of the earth (Zephaniah 1:2-3).

God will send people to steal
Jerusalem, rape the women, and enslave the rest (Zechariah 14:2).

God will send plagues on people and
animals to rot away tongues and eyes (Zechariah 14:12-15).

The prophets warn us of the Old Testament
God’s frightful, futuristic return to the earth, at which point he’ll initiate
every category of curse imaginable on the people who ignore his commandments,
refuse to worship him, or commit acts that he arbitrarily deems evil. It’s
remarkable how he can randomly dish out such unfathomable punishments for
reasons a typical person would consider lacking in foundation, yet he becomes
terribly enraged when one of us follows suit.

God brings people into this world without
a choice in the matter and expects us to do certain things, otherwise he’ll
punish us severely without rest for an eternity.
God’s omniscience must necessarily allow him to know which names will not be
included in his book of life. Therefore, we can only conclude that he purposely
brings people into the world with zero
chance of avoiding Hell. Any deviation from this predetermined course would
make God wrong, but since God cannot possibly be wrong, it’s impossible for us
to deviate from the absolutely unalterable plan that he has already envisioned.
Thus, Christians can only logically claim that we are exclusively involuntary
pawns at the mercy of God’s whimsical decisions as to where we will spend our
ultimate eternal destinations. This heartless exercise of brutality can only be
the single most hateful crime any being could ever commit.

Now that I’ve had time to reflect upon
these considerations, if I believed for one moment that it was possible for
this god to exist, I would be the first person in church on Sunday morning and
the last person out the door Sunday evening. I would swallow my disgust and
worship the deity that I detested in order to accept the slightly more
agreeable punishment of eternal praise over eternal agony. In our universe
bound by reality, however, such a personality can only be a ridiculous creation
from a deceitful set of individuals who were sadly unaware of the vicious
monster they created.

The God
Worshipped By Two Billion

God barbarically killed millions of people
in the Old Testament because they weren’t “fortunate” enough to belong to the
Israelite tribe. Had these alleged victims belonged to the lineage of Jacob,
they obviously wouldn’t have suffered the full wrath of God. However, what
chances did they realistically have of converting to worship the Hebrew deity
when their own parents conditioned them to think according to their local
customs? Even today, God’s evil demands require us to murder billions of
non-Christians because their parents unknowingly continue to practice this same
form of powerful conditioning. The consequences of obeying God’s directions
should give us the presence of mind to refrain from following such orders
without first analyzing the morality of the demands in question. Widely
distributed directions from a fair god should be moral or have a satisfactory
explanation. Otherwise, we may be repeating the same evil accomplishments of
our ancestors.

What logic is there in the fact that the
being who promises us eternal life because of his love for all humankind is the
same entity who orders us to kill a variety of people for morally bankrupt
reasons? The biblical god is not “wonderful” and “loving” as Christians claim
because these unenlightened followers base such crude assessments on the more
positive New Testament. The God of the Old Testament, on the other hand, is
pure evil and full of perpetual anger; he even admits as much. No one who
creates and needlessly kills millions of people can honestly be called
“wonderful” and “loving,” deity or not. Certainly, most people wouldn’t think
it was fair if they saw their fellow man being tortured just because his
parents raised him with a different version of the creator. God even takes
enjoyment in the fact that many people will never make it into Heaven.
Regardless of your position on the issue, I believe we can all agree that God
has quite a unique character about him, to say the least.

We’ve also come to realize that we can
observe the following qualities of God: he exhibits immature rage when no one
pays attention to him; he makes people suffer for what others have done; he has
no regard for human life; and he tortures decent people for such reasons as
winning bets with Satan. If we were to extract this behavior into human terms,
we would most likely draw a comparison with that of a spoiled child. Because of
an obvious state of fear and panic over similar reports heard by authors of the
ancient Hebrew scriptures, they wrote and sang praises to this terrible
creature thinking that such measures might assist in helping them escape his
unconscionable wrath.

To top it all off, God conveniently ceased
his murdering and slave driving when modern philosophers, enlightened thinking,
and accurate historical records began to appear. However, Jesus did not
invalidate the aforementioned rules and regulations with his teachings, as some
apologists often claim, because the old laws were never intended to be cast
aside. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not
come to destroy, but to
fulfil” (Matthew 5:7). “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than
one tittle of the law to fail” (Luke 16:17). Amazingly, the perfect Jesus also
tells us that we should abide by the old laws established by Moses. Something
is definitely wrong here.